


Domesticity

by Gemmi999



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Flash Fic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemmi999/pseuds/Gemmi999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There wasn’t exactly a moment when Rodney realized that Sheppard was his boyfriend—rather, it was a gradual process that started one morning when he put on the wrong underwear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticity

There wasn’t exactly a moment when Rodney realized that Sheppard was his boyfriend—rather, it was a gradual process that started one morning when he put on the wrong underwear. He’d been rather sleepy, and Sheppard had called the first shower (which reminded Rodney far too much of college, for reasons that were better left unexplored). Instead of really paying attention to what he was doing, Rodney reached into the top left-hand drawer and pulled out a pair of boxer-briefs.

He’d pulled them up and seconds later was wondering if he’d managed to spontaneously add some grotesque amount of weight overnight, because he knew his boxers weren’t normally thistight and that while he liked the way they emphasized portions of his anatomy, he preferred being able to breath without having elastic dig into his stomach.

Moments later Rodney was rushing into the bathroom and pulling the scale out of its hiding place, determined to figure out exactly what had happened. He’d stepped on it, and seconds later heard a chuckle from the direction of the shower. Turning, he’d been about to snark at John when he heard: “I know you like getting in my pants, but not enough to wear them.”

Rodney had bristled for a second before he glanced down and realized that the dratted underwear really was Sheppard’s. He pulled them off in a huff and stood in the bathroom naked for a grand total of five seconds before Sheppard practically attacked him, muttering the entire time about how hot it had been seeing Rodney in his underwear, and that he’d have to wear it again, particularly during a boring staff meeting.

Needless to say, they were both late to work that morning.

~~

Days later, when Rodney was cleaning out the fridge’s backlog of takeout containers and leftovers from days previous, he nearly had a heart attack when he spotted a bottle of orange marmalade, sort of tucked in back corner and covered with a bag of wilted baby spinach leaves left over from his last attempt at health eating.

Instead of touching the jar of death, Rodney had calmly backed away from the fridge, picked up the landline, and was half-way through dialing John’s number before realizing it had been programmed as speed-dial # 4 (because John thought 4 was one of the better numbers in the universe and ranted about it one evening when he’d been drunk, and Rodney had joined in the joke by programming the number in the telephone). He hung up the phone, picked it back up once more, and held down the number 4.

Waiting for John to pick-up, Rodney mentally reviewed his entire rant concerning citrus and death, in case he hadn’t been clear enough months earlier when John had tried to feed him Lemon Chicken from some Chinese restaurant. Rodney paid particular attention to the Death portion of the rant, knowing that he would want to emphasize that in such a way to make John truly understand what a tragedy it would be.

Ten minutes later the Rodney hung up the phone, pacified with the knowledge that while John occasionally liked orange marmalade on his toast, he knew better then to eat it around Rodney and in fact only kept a jar in the house for the days when he knew Rodney had an early morning meeting with the shareholders at Atlantis Enterprises. It was a type of guilty pleasure that Rodney didn’t have the heart to destroy, so he left the jar of death on the shelf, and resolved to store food on the other four levels of the fridge—it was about time John had his own shelf, anyway.

~~

The first time Ronon, one of John’s insane military friends, called Rodney on his cell, Rodney wrote it off as an error in judgement. Ronon had only wanted to know if John would be free that weekend for an afternoon of paintball, and he couldn’t get through to John because of some meeting with Pegasus Incorporated that John had been stressing about for months practically.

Rodney had told Ronon that Sunday afternoon worked best without giving it much thought, and hung up the phone. He’d walked over to the kitchen white board and wrote “Ronon, paintball, Sunday, 2pm” in big electric blue letters.

Two weeks later, Ronon called again, this time asking for advice on what to get John for a birthday gift. Apparently the previous year Ronon had gotten John a tea-cozy (and why Ronon thought John would want one, Rodney had no idea). After a few minutes of discussion, Rodney advised the taciturn man that he was best off getting John something shiny and deadly, maybe a new knife or a set of those ninja throwing stars that John mooned over in martial arts movies.

When he heard the excitement in Ronon’s voice over the throwing star idea, Rodney began to mentally recalculate his allergy medication to account for the hay that would soon be a permanent presence in the backyard. He’d scheduled an appointment with Beckett, the Atlantis doctor, ten minutes later.

~~

When John’s Netflix movies began arriving at the house, which was what Rodney had taken to calling his condo, he knew he should be a little bit worried. He couldn’t remember the last time John had spent the night at his apartment, and in fact couldn’t remember John even mentioning the apartment during the previous couple of weeks.

But, that train of thought was set aside in favor of opening up the red envelope and seeing what movie John had picked out for the two of them that evening. They had a standard Tuesday/Saturday movie night, and John had been very tight-lipped about this weeks selection.

He grinned happily when he saw it was the documentary he’d mentioned in passing a few weeks earlier: the one about penguins. Rodney didn’t like penguins per say, but he’d heard Katie Brown talking to Zelenka (his second in command at Atlantis) about it, and well, figured he should see what all the fuss was about. Plus, this way he could casually mention it in conversation with Katie to prove that he wasn’t the socially inept scientist she seemed to think he was.

Besides, he’d heard great things about the cinematography.

~~

Later that evening, after Rodney and Sheppard had watched the penguins valiantly try to protect their fragile eggs from the extreme cold of the arctic, Rodney poked Sheppard lightly in the side.

John looked at Rodney carefully before turning and facing the sometimes scary scientist, knowing that whatever Rodney was about to say probably wouldn’t be something he’d want to hear.

“Yes?” He drawled out, deepening the nonexistent accent life had left him with.

Rodney laid his head on John shoulder before murmuring softly: “I left a key for you on the counter in the kitchen; I’ll pay rent if you cover utilities and netflix.”

John gulped before nodding in agreement, “sound’s perfect.” He whispered in response. “Best proposal I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, well.” Rodney snuggled closer to John before continuing, “I am a genius."


End file.
